Tuesday, May 9, 2017

10 Questions: Vegan Rockstar with Alex Hershaft

Dr. Alex
Hershaft was the first vegan heroes I’d met in person back in the late
1990s when I was at Vegetarian
Summerfest where he was a speaker. I’d been vegan for a couple of years and
had been an activist for a while so I was familiar with his work with the pioneering
organization he founded, the Farm Animal
Rights Movement or FARM, which evolved from its precursor, the Vegetarian
Information Service, in 1981. As someone who was happy to pick up a sign and
pass out some pamphlets for the animals, his work, like World Day for Farmed Animals (October 2,
yo!) and the Great
American Meatout (March 20!), gave people like me an outlet. (FARM also
puts on the Animal Rights Conference
every year, no small undertaking. I will be speaking this year. Join us! It’s
always an incredible conference.) As an ardent collector of newsletters, Alex
and his work through FARM gave me inspiration. I will never forget that
Summerfest when he sat on a bench next to me and talked to me about a part of
his life I hadn’t heard about before: his childhood, his survival of the Warsaw
Ghetto, his narrow escape of the Treblinka death camp along with his mother,
his father’s murder. It was mesmerizing and agonizing. I was also very touched
by his approachability and patient willingness to be peppered with questions by
my neophyte, awestruck self.

All these years later, Alex has made his story of survival, and how he
connected the dots of the cruelties he observed and experienced as a child to
his life’s work of promoting kindness for all species, available to everyone in
his amazing speech, From
the Warsaw Ghetto to a Life of Compassion. Alex Hershaft is a living legend
and I am proud to feature him as this week’s Vegan Rockstar.

1. First of all, we’d love to hear your
“vegan evolution” story. How did you start out? Did you have any early
influences or experiences as a young person that in retrospect helped to pave
your path?

As far back as I can remember, it never made sense to me to hit a
beautiful, innocent, sentient animal over the head, cut his body into small
pieces, and then shove the pieces into my mouth. I suppose it was initially an
aesthetic conviction - not too different from that of the ladies in Queen
Victoria's England that led to the early anti-cruelty statutes.

In 1962, during my two-year stay in Israel, I stumbled across the ritual
sacrifice of a baby goat to celebrate the birth of a Druze baby. The bitter
irony of that act was the last straw I needed to change my diet. I remained a
closet vegetarian until attending the 1975 World Vegetarian Congress in Orono,
ME, when I decided to spend the rest of my life promoting a vegetarian diet.

In 1976, I founded the Vegetarian Information Service, offering veg literature
to the public. In 1981, I launched the first animal rights conference, without
fully getting the concept. My fellow board members who did convinced me to go
vegan. In my defense, about what took so long, very few of the animal champions
at the time were vegan.

2. Imagine that you are pre-vegan again:
how could someone have talked to you and what could they have said or shown you
that could have been the most effective way to have a positive influence on you
moving toward veganism?

It would be pretty much the same argument we are presenting to young people
today. Failure to embrace a vegan diet requires subsidizing and becoming
complicit in the worst oppression and abuse of sentient living beings in the
history of humankind. The associated health and environmental benefits are just
a bonus.

3. What have you found to be the most
effective way to communicate your message as a vegan? For example, humor,
passion, images, etc.?

Least effective: facts
and numbers about slaughter, health and environmental arguments (OK, health may
work for older folks), animal "rights" arguments.
4. What do you think are the biggest strengths of the vegan movement?

a) The fact that our
actions are consistent with common values of respect for life, in general, and
animals, in particular

b) The fact that we are
working at the roots of all life-affirming and social justice movements - a
vegan lives a healthy life, with minimal carbon footprint, without oppressing

b) The fact that we are
the only movement working on behalf of another set of beings - not ourselves

5. What do you
think are our biggest hindrances to getting the word out effectively?

We have gotten pretty
good at getting the word out through videos, social media, traditional media.
The problem we are running into is getting people to change their lifestyle
three times a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No other U.S. movement has
demanded a substantial lifestyle change since Lincoln's 1863 emancipation
proclamation.

6. All of us need a “why vegan” elevator pitch. We’d love to hear yours.

See 4 (a)

7. Who are the
people and what are the books, films, websites and organizations that have had
the greatest influence on your veganism and your continuing evolution?

Without meaning to sound arrogant, can't think of any.

8. Burn-out is so
common among vegans: what do you do to unwind, recharge and inspire yourself?

To unwind - folk dancing every Friday evening and occasional
classical music concert

To distract - crossword puzzles and news reports and commentaries

To recharge and inspire -
occasional trips to a slaughterhouse, but haven't really needed that, as
activism has become part of my life's fabric

What has most immunized
me against burnout, however, has been my low need for praise and recognition
and my being in control of my activities

9. What is the issue nearest and dearest to your heart that you
would like others to know more about?

It's the main conclusions
of my Holocaust speech:

* that oppression is initially subtle, almost
imperceptible and, like some forms of cancer, becomes evident only when it's to
late to stop

*
that all are capable of oppression, including some of our favorite friends and
relatives who subsidize the greatest oppression of sentient living beings in
the history of humankind every time they shop for food

*
that oppression is not about the victims, but about the oppressive mindset, or
the capacity to oppress

*
that making oppression about the victims and the resulting cult of victimhood
divide and frustrate our efforts to mount a united front against all oppression

* that oppression of animals is the "gateway
drug" to all oppression, administered to a four-year old when they are
told that the dog on the couch is to be cherished, fed, and cared for, but the
pig on their plate is to be abused, killed, dismembered, and consumed as food

10 comments:

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Hey guys, I'm so excited of getting my husband back after he left me and our 3 kids for another woman. After 2 years of marriage, me and my husband has been into one quarrel or the other until he finally left me and moved to California to be with another woman. i felt my life was over and my kids thought they would never see their father again. i tried to be strong just for the kids but i could not control the pains that torments my heart, my heart was filled with sorrows and pains because i was really in love with my husband. Every day and night i think of him and always wish he would come back to me, I was really upset and i needed help, so i searched for help online and I came across a website that suggested that Dr Unity can help get ex back fast. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he told me what to do and i did it then he did a (Love spell) for me. 28 hours later, my husband really called me and told me that he miss me and the kids so much, So Amazing!! So that was how he came back that same day,with lots of love and joy,and he apologized for his mistake,and for the pain he caused me and the kids. Then from that day,our Marriage was now stronger than how it were before,All thanks to Dr Unity. he is so powerful and i decided to share my story on the internet that Dr Unity real and powerful spell caster who i will always pray to live long to help his children in the time of trouble, if you are here and you need your Ex back or your husband moved to another woman, do not cry anymore, contact this powerful spell caster now. Here’s his contact: Email him at: Unityspelltemple@gmail.com ,you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348071622464 ,his website:http://unityspelltemple.yolasite.com ,Jessica, 26 years, Texas, USA .

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Dr MABUWA is a great healer that can heal your disease. i was cured from HSV 1 and HSV 2 VIRUS after i contacted from my boyfriend after he cheated and since 2years ago i had been living a life full of fear. but when i surfed on the internet one morning and i saw comment on Dr MABUWA curing deadly disease. HERPES.HIV.DIABETES.HPV.HBV. CANCER and many more. i was skeptical that he might not be real then i decided to give a try to him. and as i did i never regretted contacting the great Dr MABUWA. he told me the ways and how to get my herbal medicine i believe and worked with him and he sent me my herbal medicine and as i received it he gave me instruction on how i will take it and i also gave my boyfriend to also drink because i really love him. despite he cheated on me. and behold Dr MABUWA said after 2weeks of usage we should go for test and as we did. our result both came out negative. Many lives has been saves because of you sir. may you ever reign and may God bless you more. you can reach him on his Email:drmabuwasolutioncuretemple@gmail.com or his What app Mobil:+2348130714541 or visit his Webs:https://drmabuwasolutioncu.wixsite.com/drmabuwa

Hello everyone my mouth is full of testimony I was help by Dr Zack Balo. I have been married for four 8years and on the fifth year of my marriage, another woman had a spell to take my lover away from me and my husband left me and the kids and we have be suffering until I meet a post where this man called Dr Zack Balo who have helped so many people and I decided to give him a try to help me bring my husband back home and believe me I just send my picture to him and that of my husband and after 72hours as he have told me, my husband drove home by his self apologizing that I should forgive him, now my husband has show me love more than ever I am happy knowing Dr Zack Balo. So if you know you have these kinds of problem contact him through his private email: wiseindividualspell@gmail.com or call him on +2348078927387 and your heart desire will be granted.